As I type this, I am reading through the umpteenth article about disgraced ex-NAACP chairwoman Rachel Dolezal, who as you may have had drilled into your skull via social media, is a 100% White woman who still publicly identifies herself as “Black” despite:

1. A DNA test showing she is 100% White.2. Her 100% White parents publicly chastening her.3. Having admitted to not being Black and to wearing a more publicly pleasing version of blackface.

I am seething, watching this green eyed, German and Czech creature with caked on tanning makeup, try and convince the world that she “has it rough” because she identifies as a race she has never been.

And I am reading the comments White people are leaving, and at this point, I don’t know whether to laugh or grit my teeth. They not only support her decision to parade in the streets, screaming “look at me look at me I’m BLACK” but I just read a comment that just about made this worse.

“It’s no different from when a man wants to be a woman, what’s the dif?”

Excuse me? Buddy, there is a big “dif” right here.

See, when a man wants to become a woman, (or vice-versa) it’s because he feels he was born the wrong gender. So be saves his money, pays for life altering surgery, life altering gene therapy, and slowly but surely, becomes a woman. It is a long, emotional, painful process, in which he will see who really cares about him and who loves him enough to accept him as a “her” post-process. It’s expensive, not just fiscally, but on a personal level, but he does it with passion and conviction, without sacrificing his roots. Even if he is rejected, he will still be able to tell you who his parents are, and he will not ever lie to your face about his family, even if they do not accept his new life.

What Rachel Dolezal is doing tantamount to parody.

Unlike a transgender person, Rachel Dolezal is not doing this publicity stunt out of passion, despite her claims. She doesn’t feel like African American is her “spirit race” she is doing this deliberately to see how much attention and sympathy she can garner by rejecting her race.

She rejects her family, rejects her bloodline, and prances around in Blackface, trying to make you emote for her. Joining the NAACP was more about seeing how much she could get over the public and less about the fight for equality. This is evident by how little she actually fought for, and how much extra public relations work she left behind.Furthermore, people like Rachel Dolezal are nothing but a headache and a sincere hindrance to people who are either mixed race or light skinned.

I am known as a “Quadroon”. That’s an old word that means I am one quarter Black. As such, my skin changes from near-Caucasian to a deep gold depending on my health.

Thanks to people like Rachel Dolezal, I now have to carry around photos of my mother and grandfather to prove to people I’m not yet another “crazy Rachel Dolezal” and I really am mixed race.

I have adult strangers calling me “wannabe” because of Rachel Dolezal.

White people wear fake chains around me, blare rap music, eat pork and claim they are “more Black” than I will “ever be” and then expect me to accept them as “the new Black” and cry for their fake struggles. As they tweet disparaging comments on their iPhones about how “stupid” #BlackLivesMatter is and how “all Blacks” are hoodlums who deserve death.

I have strangers name calling me online, pretending I don’t have the right to be angry over Rachel Dolezal, trying to convince me that this White woman in blackface is having a “rough” life in her designer clothes and crocodile tears.

Blacks now don’t know how to look at a light skinned “sista” anymore. I’ve seen Blacks look at mixed race babies cock-eyed, not knowing if they can trust this child’s ethnicity because of Rachel Dolezal.

And nobody trusts the NAACP anymore, because someone was foolish enough to elect Rachel Dolezal to a leadership status at a critical time where we needed someone who had more than their own interests at heart. We have conditions in this country ripe for a race war, and yet here we are, allowing a Rachel Dolezal to run around in brown makeup and make everything about herself.

Listen, we’ve all seen when White people try to “act Black” and we’ve all had our favorites. White rappers have been off and on the music charts for more than two decades now, and it’s great to see a White person embrace Black culture.

But there has to be a healthy limit, and Rachel Dolezal takes a pole vault leap right over it.

When Michael Jackson, Sammy Sosa and Lil’ Kim decided to start “whitening up” their features, using everything from blonde hair dye and bright contacts to flat out skin bleaching, Whites called it out. Let’s be fair. It was whiteface/whitewashing and it was wrong. It was a slap in the face to each celebrity’s original genetic makeup, it was not done out of passion, it was used for publicity and it was disgraceful, borderline racism.

When the movie White Chicks came out in 2004, it was wrong. It was a movie basically making whiteface look like an “acceptable” thing, and it was racist. There is no justifying it.

So imagine my red hot anger, seeing people suddenly try to make up lousy excuses for Rachel Dolezal, after years of us finally getting rid of the notion that blackface is “just a fun hobby” and years after making it crystal clear that pretending to be another race with makeup is ethically and morally wrong. Granted, we still have a whitewashing issue in Hollywood, but with the loud backlash against whitewashing films in recent years, you might think that some people would get it by now.

Of course, I give humanity too much credit.

Rachel Dolezal, I doubt very highly you are reading this, seeing as how most people I call out like to label those of us with a legitimate concern as “haters” but as an actually Black descendant American citizen with a soon to be renewed membership in the NAACP, I hope that if for nothing else that you, and people like you, can understand why we are angry with you.

Of course you won’t, but it is still a free country, so I can hope if I want to.

Koriander Bullard is an author, cartoonist and human rights advocate. Keep up with her on Facebook!

They say everything comes back eventually, and it seems like no more true is there a case to prove this than the new-age revival of the Yuppie.

What is a Yuppie? Well according to 1980's folklore, the term “Yuppie” is short for "young upwardly-mobile professional" and generally depicts a person between the ages of 18 and 29 who will insist that he or she is socially aware, motivated and holds a deep consideration for the well being of the community, but in reality is self-absorbed, self-entitled, pushy, aggressive and despite being involved with his or her network of people on a 24/7 basis, has all of the social skills of a mouse about to be smacked with a broom. They will insist that they have liberal intentions, and yet their attitude becomes more oppressive and conservative the longer it goes unchecked. They typically enjoy being the bully, but when push comes to shove or they are simply asked to behave like adults, they will play the victim card, insist that they are the true victims for being told to stop harassing people, and they will sulk and demand you cater to their whims lest they stage a public display of intolerance. They insist that they believe in equality, will act very effeminately if they are male, and yet their attitudes towards the opposite race or gender come across as obnoxious at best and derogatory at worst. And all the while, they demand that you brush off their arrogance as a “joke” despite the lack of laughter.

We now live in a day and age in which everything needs to be about the Millennial Yuppie, the Hipster and the mostly Caucasian children of the 80's Yuppie puppies who came up in an era in which cartoons were censored, childhood was sanitized, bullies were mollycoddled, victims were demonized, and listening to hard music was considered more of a threat to society than shooting up a school, the latter of which earns you a pat on the back for being a “misunderstood and troubled kid” unless you are non-White, in which you are the devil in the flesh. These unpunished children were denied art and music in school, and thus have learned that their only outlet for expression is by hate-tweeting in retaliation of anything and everything they see fit, starting with topics that do not and never have pertained to them. Failure to devote equal attention and consideration to the #MillennialYuppie will result in Twitter backlash.

As an example, let's look at the #BlackLivesMatter issue, which since 2013 has been and still is an activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence toward black people. BLM regularly organizes protests around the deaths of black people in killings by law enforcement officers, and broader issues of racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.

In layman’s terms, we’re sick of seeing Black youth killed by racial profiling police officers, especially in cases where the decedent was not even breaking the law or otherwise posing a realistic threat to the murdering officer.

Before you start, I am not talking about cases in which the decedent was a 17 to 24 year old “thug”, I’m referencing cases such as seven year old Aiyana Jones, who in 2010 was killed in a raid initiated by police, in which an officer used not only a gun, but a grenade against the girl in a case of mistaken identity. In case you’re curious, they thought the seven year old child in pajamas was a 32 year old balding man named Chauncey Owens. The offending officers would be acquitted. In the six years since this child was laid to rest, countless hundreds of underage Black youths have been slain or brutalized by police in one racial profiling case after another, while their White counterparts are not only more likely to get a fair trial, many are more likely to go free.

The issue is that we live in a society in which it is safer to be a Caucasian, male rapist than it is to be a seven year old Black girl in her pj’s.

The entire #BlackLivesMatter protests have been about equality. Not stripping Whites of their rights, but just calling for basic decency and for an end to racial profiling. That’s all. No more and no less.

But tell that to White, Millennial Yuppies.

“What about MEEEEE???” Cries a 20-something on Tumblr with a hideous scarf and plaid overshirt in muted barf tones. “How dare you say I don’t matter, you’re wrong, I’M the one being put down, not YOOOOUUUU!! #WhiteLivesMatter #MyLifeMatters!!”

“#AllLivesMatter not just yours, you’re being selfish, monkeys!” Pouts another Millennial in a bootleg Doctor Who shirt from some pop t-shirt start-up. “Nobody can EVER take you seriously because you’re not saying I matter!”

“Everybody is being bullied, not just YOU!” Demands yet another Millennial in yet another bootlegged shirt, this time of The Little Mermaid’s Ariel wearing glasses and sporting “Daddy issue” tattoos. Her duck face pose is only highlighted by her machine-knit “naturally made” beanie, matching Allan Sherman glasses and poorly streaked black and brown hair, also in a faux-natural look.

“It’s not about you, your life doesn’t matter. #NoLivesMatter because it’s ironic!” Says a fake comedian on Twitter, who also has the phrase “choose death” on his profile splash page while his profile pic is of the lad pulling a Pixar mom smile, where the entirety of the smile is held on one side of the face, stretching the left cheek over the right.

Rather than show remorse for the pile of bodies racial profiling has given us, these Millennials miss the point. Just as their parents did before them, they twist and turn the hash-tag into a “poor me” situation and force themselves into the story as the “true” victims.

Now for the real irony. Just as the Yuppies once did in the 1980’s, these Millennials proclaim in every interview and study that they are concerned about the environment and about our society. They want to see us all become more aware of our surroundings and more compassionate.

And yet just like the Yuppies, these Millennials do the opposite of their actions.

They cry about pollution, while sipping their “back 2 nature” kale smoothies from plastic bottles.

They whine about injustice, while calling anybody fighting actual social injustice “SJWs” or “Social Justice Warriors” while mocking them and trying to decide who gets to be called a real or fake feminist.

What scares me is how much like the Yuppies these cretins really are.

And why?

Because I saw what the Yuppies did.

Once upon a time, the first-gen Yuppies elected Ronald Reagan as president. Never mind that he made it clear he was going to undo the good work Jimmy Carter had tried to start during his short term in office. Never mind the fact that this man was senile, in the throws of Alzheimer’s and was a virtual puppet controlled on live television (look it up) by bankers and would spend his eight years in office putting into place the credit policies that have contributed to a consistent economic downturn and alarming unemployment rate, and let’s also ignore that his “Trickle Down” theory led to the stock market crash of 1987.

He was on TV. And TV is never wrong.

Let me be clear. The Yuppies elected into office a mad man who once threatened to (again, Google it) go to war with another country…. Over nutmeg… because he felt nutmeg in cookies is the reason why we even bother to have Christmas. No nutmeg? No Santa or baby Jesus. I’m not even making this up.

If the 2016 election is any indication, then congratulations. We are now right back where we were in the 1980’s. Only now, we don’t just have shallow, self-centered Yuppies to worry about, many of whom will be joining AARP for the first time this year. Oh no.

We have Millennials that eyeballed Donald Trump with the same curiosity their parents once eyed Ronald Reagan with. Eyeballing women’s rights and #BlackLivesMatter with the same disdain as their parents did, after surviving a childhood highlighted by Roe v. Wade and Loving v. The State of Virginia.

In the 80’s, we feared a world dominated by the Yuppies. But I doubt we were prepared for their more aggressive, more destructive and yet more cowardly and spineless offspring.

And yet, no more bitter an enemy will you see than that of the Yuppie to it’s children.

Years of helicopter parenting, the removal of music and art from school, the censoring of cartoons, music and video games, along with the refusal to punish, has led to the Millennials resenting their parents and the parents throwing up their hands in anguish.

Irony dear children, is not seen in your depiction of Ariel wearing glasses and gritting her teeth in a half-photoshopped meme, but in the fact that the parental units who you so loathingly refer to on DeviantArt, (the same people by the way letting you live with them as you approach age thirty) have actually become your greatest role models.

And why not? You behave exactly like them, right down to the thrift-store hand-me-downs and withering vinyl records you cling to as you protest another #BlackLivesMatter protest.

And no greater a threat is there to American society than the Millennial Yuppie.

At least until their children log in.

Koriander Bullard is an author, cartoonist and human rights advocate. Keep up with her on Facebook!

We’ve read your “articles” rife with misinformation, lies and just general hate. None of us real gamers are amused, and we’re done with mollycoddling you.

Your hatred of Nintendo? It’s fake. Deal with it, because that’s the truth.

At this point, you anti-Nintendo guys are doing nothing except imagining reasons to complain about Nintendo.

You lied about the last few consoles having “sub-par” graphics, when we all saw that Nintendo has kept up with Sony and Microsoft’s output. Yeah. When you pretended to have issues with the frame-rate, and you posted one hate video after another, we put up with it. But now that all of the last few console cycles worth of games are dropping in price, we can all see your hate was unwarranted, as Nintendo never had these issues. The games don’t have lag issues the way they sometimes did for XBOX 360 or PlayStation, and if it’s the number of frames per animation you’ve been whining about, then you seriously need to get out more, because all games for all consoles film sequences between 30 and 60 frames a second. If you really are anal retentive enough to count every single frame, then that speaks more against you than Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft.

I'm a video game collector and honestly, I feel like I've gotten more enjoyment out of my last two Nintendo consoles than I did my last XBOX and PlayStation purchases. And that's not a knock against the other two, that's just based off of the games.

For starters, let’s talk about the colors adorning these graphics you claim you can’t stand.

Nintendo uses a full color palette in almost all of their games, while every other XBOX and PlayStation release is in shades of gray, brown, yellow or if I'm very lucky, zombie teal, with the exception of the more anime like games, which at least throw in purple. If you think that sticking a pee yellow film over a wasteland makes it more “real” then you have never seen life outside of your own front door. Want real colors? Go outside. When you’re done wincing at the blue sky, white clouds, bright green grass and lack of an Instagram filter, you will realize that despite your hate, Nintendo’s games mostly use a palette of colors found in real life, while the games you over-hype are limited to an Atari 2600 palette.

Speaking of the games you over hype, let’s talk about them.

All of PlayStation and XBOX’s “hits” fall into the same, lame categories: Shooter, Post Apocalyptic, Exploration and Crime.

Your shooter games are all interchangeable. Sure, you may change the enemy a little bit, but it’s always the same war simulator. It’s always first person. You go through the same destroyed areas. The personalities are identical and the reason to shoot is usually superficial. Yawn.

The post apocalyptic games are also borefests. Oh look. Everyone is miserable. Nobody trusts anybody. Undead people. Outbreak. Facebook conspiracy theory. Is there any imagination left?

The exploration games usually offer pretty landscapes, but generic monsters and stories that feel almost identical to the post apocalyptic genre. Again, nobody trusts anybody, everyone is miserable, have the writers of the scripts at Bethesda and Ubisoft ever dealt with real people?

And of course, let’s not forget the crime games, such as GTA. Yes, nothing like aimlessly shooting things and evading the police for a few hours while doing jobs for crime bosses with (again) trust issues. I detect a pattern in successful games here.

Sometimes I’ll be treated to a random indie game, said to be “edgy” and flip “the man” on his back… but it’s usually just an 8-bit low color palette re-hash of the above. Oh. Riveting.

Let’s face facts. The “popular” games don't offer as much of a replay value as Nintendo's lot, and honestly the graphics are just fine, on par with PlayStation and XBOX.

Yes, Nintendo’s more popular games cater to families. But making up for that are bright, realistic colors, hidden levels, different endings and sometimes a character or two with a little extra depth.

For example, the more recent Nintendo made games have gotten darker. Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii introduces us to Rosalina, who starts off as a Princess Peach clone, but ends the game as a foster parent with a tragic back story. The remake of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire feature a grieving teen mom who helps you literally save the planet, while Pokemon Sun and Moon’s lead villain is an abusive mother who challenges the player’s views on ethics and family relationships. Alleged kids games, and yet each one features a story with twists, drama within context and the kind of “deep” storytelling you Nintendo haters claimed you just “couldn’t find” on the colorful consoles.

Now let’s talk about updates and loading times. While all three console giants have been forcing us to update and patch games that were in development long enough that they shouldn’t have had to be patched, and loading times vary by game, let’s be clear.

If you don’t update a Nintendo game, you can still play it. It’s seldom that missing a patch would bar you from online play, and when it does, the updates never take more than a few minutes to install. Same with the games, a new Nintendo game can be played in under an hour.

And this is on bad internet. Windstream, Time Warner and Comcast gamers don’t usually spend more than one hour installing anything via the Nintendo eShop feature.

Meanwhile, the last game I downloaded on PlayStation 4 wasted seven and a half hours of my life, downloading, installing, and then auto downloading patches just to make it playable.And this is no isolated incident either. XBOX and PSN games typically take two or more hours to download, even with excellent internet, while arcade and small patches clock in between 45 minutes and an hour.

Inexcusable, especially if the game is under 40 hours in length. And plenty of my PSN games can be cleared in under 15.

It’s time we stop buying into the video game hate altogether.

Most gamers are just pretending to have problems with Nintendo now. The eyerolling, threats of a boycott, not one of you can invent a solid reason to hate the Nintendo Entertainment Systems when your more favored consoles are on par with the so called “kiddie family” systems.

I know you’re faking the hate, because every last one of you that whined and cried about the GameCube are now praising it across every single blog and gaming page. This last week alone, I have seen tons of usual Nintendo haters demanding re-releases for GameCube games, years after chastising the “purple lunchbox” for various, fake reasons.

Even the Wii hate is turning around. Games you used to call “shovelware” and “mom games” are now creeping up on your wish lists for the nostalgia effect and because you realize that PlayStation and XBOX are now giving you worse shovelware with fewer options. You realize that all three giants cater to kids with similar games, but Nintendo’s kid games feature depth, while the other two are again, shovelware. We know too you only hate these games because someone actually wants to cater to children, and you’ve fooled yourselves into thinking that games only belong to boys between the ages of 15 and 35, when the rest of the world has never been that narrow minded. And you know what? We’re done entertaining that fantasy as well. This isn’t a “new” thing. Video games have always been for everyone, regardless of gender or age, and there isn’t a set amount of rape and death threats you can hurl at the rest of us to change that fact. Don’t believe me? Google the Atari, Colecovision and Odyssey ads. You’ll notice a wide age group that catered to both genders.

Same with Nintendo.

So if the graphics are fine, the games are fun, what exactly do you want? What is your problem?

Oh that’s right. You don’t really have a problem. You just wanted to act like you did.

You can pretend I'm "wrong" if you want. You can even call me names, swear or poke fun at my not being a man, but it's just the truth. You guys are upset over nothing, and you have been since 2001. You hate Nintendo because they cater to more than just emo teens and angsty gun fans, and again, your "problems" are all imaginary.

On a whole, most of us who've been gaming since the 80's are just tired of the fake hate. So don’t be so “butthurt” when we decide not to cater to your hate anymore.

Every year, I am reminded that adults behave worse than the little, ankle biting trick or treaters the very instant Halloween rolls around. And I’m not talking the recent wave of creepy clown sightings. Adult tantrums, spreading false facts as truths, and the incessant whining in stores has taken all of the fun out of the holiday for children, to the point where most children just stop trying before the age of ten. And yet all of this idiocy is allegedly done “for” the children. Well as long as we’re so concerned about the little ankle biters, let’s discuss this list of things we can all get over.

1. Nobody is giving your kid drugs on Halloween.

One parent, one time only, poisoned his children the week of Halloween back in the 1970’s. And ever since then, people have been spreading this myth that 30% of all Halloween candy is poisoned. And when we’re not hearing about poison, we’re hearing about razor blades.

The new-age rumor is that people are actually giving children ecstasy.

Really? Are we that gullible?

First of all, every year, there are zero reports in the news of children being given drugged candy. Every year, responsible parents check the bags, and every year, nothing happens.

Second, do you have any idea how much street drugs cost? The amount of money it would take to poison a batch of trick or treaters with Molly could very easily pay for two new PlayStation consoles. Realistically, no drug addict is reckless enough to distribute potent drugs to a gang of kindergarteners.

When it comes to Halloween poisons, you have a better chance of your kid bringing home a candy he’s allergic to than you do seeing him bring home a Quaalude. It’s time we put this tired old wives’ tale to bed. Check the bags before you let them eat, let the kids know not to eat anything already opened, but don’t spoil their fun.

2. Keep your drama out of their costumes.

While we can all agree that nobody beneath the age of 16 should be caught dead in any costume labeled as “sexy” and nobody should be wearing any racially demeaning costume, but let’s face facts, the drama has to stop.

Does Sarah want to dress up to be a princess?Does Jeffery want to be a Power Ranger?Does Tiffany want to be a Pirate?Does Alexander want to be Elsa?

Then let them. Know why you should?

Because they are children. And you are an adult. Act like it.

Your kid isn’t going to grow up to be psychologically scarred over that sparkly, sheer tutu, anymore than they’re likely to become a drug addict over wearing that piece of fabric with the gold trim. It’s Halloween. We don’t need your political stances, your conservative or liberal prejudices, we just need you to hold their hand and not flip out because for one day, they decided to dress up as something you object to. There is no such thing as a costume that makes you Gay, anti-God, sexist or a rapist.

You’re not going to get too many of these where they even want to dress up, and it’s likely that whatever they’re into right now will be a distant memory come next Halloween. Whatever costume they picked is a one time only affair. Trick or Treating lasts less than three hours. It’s not a lifetime. If they’re mature enough to pick an outfit that has more material on it than a bathing suit, then you are mature enough to deal with whatever they picked out for three, measly hours.

3. Keep your drama out of their candy.

Halloween is once a year.

Once.

Your kid isn’t going to get “fat” because he ate a few bite size pieces of chocolate.

Your kid isn’t going to mutate because he had an M&M made with GMO’s.

Your kid doesn’t need to worry about how much sustainable energy the Mars factory used up to make his fun size bag of candy, or the long term effects from having his annual binge of mellow cremes.

Unless your kid has a legit allergy, and just drank an entire vat of Red number 40, I don’t think he’s going to be all that different from having a handful of Reese’s Pieces.

I will say this again. Halloween is once a year. He has 364 other days in the year to be force fed your lawn ornament vegetables, grass clipping kale juice and adult-friendly low carb pita wraps. 364 days of you trying to convince yourself first and your child second that a handful of raisins is the same as having a snack size Kit Kat, and 364 days of flavorless, gluten free seaweed chips and tofurkey dogs.

Let him have a little candy. He’ll live. We can send him back to nature on All Saints Day, macrame bracelet and all.

4. Keep the drama to yourself.

We get it. Teachers are unfair. Maybe they didn’t give you a 30 day heads up before asking for a truckload of candy corn cupcakes. Maybe your child’s birthday was just in the wrong month. Whatever the reason, we don’t need to see you throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of Target, and whining about how unfair it is that you have to spend “so much money” on your child’s costume and party decorations.

More importantly, your child doesn’t need to see it.

The purpose of the modern holiday is to give us something fresh. Children on a whole have four days a year to look forward to:

After that, your child has more than 360 days to deal with the stress at school, dealing with siblings they didn’t ask for, doing chores because you want to goof off on Facebook, doing piles of homework that I promise will not mean anything to them after they graduate high school, dealing with peer pressure, dealing with your judgmental relatives you keep insisting they should spend time with, and dealing with you, your stresses and your public meltdown in the baking aisle. 360 wasted days of a very short childhood. And all they ask for is that you indulge them for a few, short hours, once a year.

Childhood is only from the ages of 5 to 9. After that, it’s puberty and hormones, and I promise, you will be missing these years when they’re all over.

Scale back the drama, and let them enjoy this holiday.

5. Keep politics and religion out of Halloween.

Your kid isn’t going to turn evil because of Halloween.Black cats are not evil.We don’t need to be guilted into adopting black cats.Nobody is turning your kid pagan.The Church of Satan does not want your kid.Your kid isn’t Gay because he wants to wear something sparkly.Children like bright colors and sparkly things.Your kid isn’t a rapist because he likes pirates.Your kid doesn’t support fracking or war because he likes G.I. Joe.Your kid isn’t a racist because he wants to be a cop.Your kid isn’t a lesbian because she doesn’t want to be a princess.Your kid isn’t anti-feminist because she wants to be a princess.Jesus doesn’t hate trick or treaters.Hell is full of many people. Trick or treaters are not on the list.Your kid isn’t supporting Monsanto because he ate an M&M willingly.We’re not anti-autism because we ask your kid to say please and thank you. It’s called minding your manners. It’s not meant to attack their auditory issues.Teenagers enjoy trick or treating for the same reason five year olds do. If they’re in costume and they’re not trying to rob you, toss ‘em a piece of candy. The world won’t end.Some children are too poor for proper costumes. Spare the jokes and give them candy.

You shouldn’t have to be reminded of these things every year. It’s Halloween. Live a little.

Koriander Bullard is an author, cartoonist and human rights advocate. Keep up with her on Facebook!

Hey kids! Do you like Mad Libs? Then you'll LOVE the new “Kori's Day Out” play set! Each fun card has a scenario or sentence with three different options that YOU get to choose! Let's play the game!

1. Kori is seated at a table, looking through Facebook when suddenly, __________ !a. Kori's husband tells a new friend that she is multi-racial.b. A man sees her reading an NAACP related article.c. A woman tries to tug on Kori's Afro.

2. As Kori turns her gaze upwards to see the Caucasian in front of her, (he/she) tries to tell Kori that's she's not a “REAL Blackin” because she _______________.a. Doesn't listen to rap or hip hop all the time.b. Didn't have kids by the age of 16.c. Doesn't eat pork.d. Doesn't have a prison record.e. Is into “Jap crap” such as Pokemon card collecting and video games from Atlusf. Doesn't speak in Ebonicsg. Does not have metal covering or replacing any of her teethh. Doesn't wear gold chainsI. Isn't on government assistancej. Isn't drinking grape soda or juicek. Isn't “crunk”l. Isn't eating watermelonm. Isn't currently eating chickenn. Doesn't have anything mentholated at the momento. Doesn't engage in fist fights with other femalesp. Was raised Jew for Jesusq. Is not a gun owner.r. Is not currently eating Soul Foods. Does not watch Tyler Perry filmst. Isn't playing gospel on her iPodu. Some combination of the above.

3. The Caucasian then exclaims that (he/she) is “more Black” than Kori will EVER be, because______.a. He/She is mooching off of the Government and is proud.b. He/She has a rap sheet a mile long.c. He/She routinely has gotten into street fights.d. Eats pork.e. Jebus Cri our LAWRD an' savurf. Gunzg. He/She has Kanye West/Lil' Wayne/Beyonce/Nikki Minaj on his/her iPodh. He/She enjoys good ol' suthurn cookin'

4. Kori is now angry. She produces a photo of her family, showing that she is biologically one quarter Black, and points out her Mulatto mother, Black grandfather, Black aunts, etc. A second photo shows her hair is natural and comes from her mother.

The Caucasian rolls (his/her) eyes and tells her not to __________.a. Start dramab. Make a scenec. Get ghettod. Be a bitche. Go crazy

5. Now that the Caucasian has made Kori feel less like a person and more like an animal who needs to be shot, she is even MORE angry and insulted. She informs the Caucasian that she would not do something that would break the law, and demands an apology. The Caucasian says_________a. It was JUST a JOKE Koriander.b. I'm not a racist, BUTc. Lighten upd. I was just having FUN okay??e. Are you on your period/PMSing?

6. Of course, this makes Kori more mad. “Look you racist, ignorant twatwaffle!” She exclaims. “Just because I'm not a peach-lipped, blackfaced stereotype does NOT mean I am less Black than YOU!!” Prompting the Caucasian to say that (he/she) is “so NAWT” a racist, because___________a. I have Black friends! (The Caucasian names off three people, one of which served him/her coffee at McDonald's.)b. I'm SO not like that.c. You're a crazy BITCH when you're angry!d. My grandmother was the Cherokee Princess Pocahontas!! (Give yourself 5 points if you know Pocahontas was not his/her grandmother nor was she Cherokee, and her princess status exists in Disney alone.)

7. As Kori is getting more and more agitated, a second Caucasian tugs at her Afro. She whips around, telling the second Caucasian “I am NOT a petting zoo!!” with the stamp of her foot. The second Caucasian says________a. But I just wanted to know what it felt like, it's so WILD!b. You SHOULD take this as a compliment. Everyone else thinks your hair is just messy/nappy.c. Uh oh! Here we go, she's going to be CRAZY again.

8. Deciding not to go to prison for cruel and unusual murder by broken spork, Kori decides to walk away. Behind her back, she hears both Caucasians write her off as________a. A bitchb. Crazyc. Stupidd. A wannabe Blackin'e. Fakef. Hormonal/PMS/Periodg. Some combination of the above.

9. Kori's husband John realizes too late that Kori is mad. He's not exactly sure if her anger is directed at him for bringing her into this situation, or at just the two Caucasians that disrespected her and then expected to be thanked for their moronic idea of “joke” telling. Frantically looking at his phone, he peeks at the budget so he can bring Kori's mood up from it's current state by purchasing for her_____a. A Snickers barb. A coffeec. Something from her Amazon wish-listd. Chocolate covered strawberries

Koriander Bullard is an author, cartoonist and human rights advocate. Keep up with her on Facebook!

I am sorry to report that if you really think that the current trend of shaming Blue Ivy Carter over her Black features started with this year’s MTV VMA’s, you are dead wrong.

This has been going on since her birth.

Blue Ivy Carter is four years old. She is the daughter of singer Beyoncé and rapper Jay-Z.

Blue Ivy is a toddler.

Blue Ivy will not be old enough for her own Twitter, Facebook or YouTube accounts for another nine years, and believe me when I say this, that is a complete blessing.

No, it’s not because she’s a (insert sexist slur here) from a rich family who will flaunt her wealth or act “a fool” as her detractors say. And no, I don’t expect her to flash a nipple on her first year on social media.

It’s because right now, she is public enemy #1.

And she is four years old.

A bulk of the remarks are that because she has her father’s wider, “more Black” nose and because her hair is dark and “kinky” unlike her mother’s “Faux White” blonde hair and brighter skin, that she is “ugly” simply for the crime of looking “ew, too African” and not at all teased and as made-up as other celebrity babies, who start sporting their first designer lipstick at age two.

I’m sorry to say that while a good chunk of comments are coming from White America, Black Millennials are not doing any better. In fact, Black adults are just as likely to shame Blue Ivy as their White counterparts.Example:

Not only are these tirades flooding the internet, but the Millennial trolls perpetrating the verbal assault aren’t even adult enough to take responsibility for their tweets. Check out this form of backtracking from a Twitter user, after she deleted a tweet about Blue Ivy:

there's plenty of black men and women with strong black features that are beautiful stop reaching

No young Millennial, with your second grade grammar and inability to properly capitalize words in a structured sentence, you missed the point, as is evident by your unrelenting re-tweeting of the “n” word from around a dozen or so other trash talkers on Twitter. This lazy level of backtracking after your deleted tweet about Blue Ivy being “ugly” is only highlighting that yes, you did in fact harp on the kid because of her wider nose, a prominent feature among more than half of all African-Americans living in the United States.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, it’s only been one year since an episode of Hulu’s sitcom Difficult People ran a tasteless joke in which one of the characters said aloud: “I can't wait for Blue Ivy to be old enough for R. Kelly to (urinate) on her.” Clearly if we’re not above telling a sexual exploitation joke about Blue Ivy when she was three, then we aren’t above trolling her when she’s four.

Another good reason I shouldn’t be surprised stems from a Cheerios ad from a few years back. You may recall that a six year old little girl with dark skin and light hair was bombarded with rape and death threats from adults, after appearing in an ad in which she had a Black father and a White mother. Similar to Blue Ivy, while a good selection of tweets came from White adults, she had her fair share of Black haters as well. And why? Well, she’s mixed of course. But she still had Black features.

And can we blame the media? While it is clear that certain tabloids for years have run a “who wore it better” column against other celebrity children, such as Suri Cruise and the parade of children from Angelina Jolie’s camp, in recent years, many of today’s grocery store rags stop from going to the extremes that they pull with late teen and adult celebrities. Don’t get me wrong, the slut shaming is immense, but there is not one tabloid on the market that has gone after Blue Ivy with half as much malice and belligerence as the rest of the world has on social media.

But for as badly as we treat Blue Ivy, let’s not forget that for every time her mother has appeared with Caucasian-friendly permed blonde locks, we have called her a sellout, wannabe-whitey and a good litany of inappropriate names.

So what do you want, America?

If Blue Ivy or her mother have their Black features front and center, you call them “ugly” and accuse them of not taking care of themselves.

But if they do try to look a little more White, you say they aren’t being true to their roots.

And woe be onto Beyoncé if she appears as slightly Black AND slightly White, for then we accuse her of looking “too mixed” for her own good.

And if the way you overreact to other Black celebrities is any indication, they can’t protest anything without being “a monkey”, they can’t not-protest without being considered to be insensitive, they can’t be rich without being “sellouts” anymore than you’d want them to be poor or middle class without them being “thugs”. They can’t die, because depending on circumstance, they would either have deserved it or would have been “stupid” about health, but they can’t live either without you picking apart their every move. And if Twitter sets any examples, they can’t be abducted by aliens, lest you accuse them of going back to “their home world” any more than they could have been sold, and they can’t go to Africa without you calling them anti-American, but then sending them to Africa is also what you request every time Beyoncé buys Blue Ivy a new pair of shoes.

You didn’t want Beyoncé to have had an abortion, you were mad when she miscarried, but you didn’t want Blue Ivy, or any of her siblings to ever have been born either.

What do you want??

Maybe the only way to appease these wastes on the internet, is if Blue Ivy just doesn’t exist at all. Remember, she can’t die, so the only alternative is for us to wake up and learn she was just a bad dream with African features.

But logically, that can’t happen. So instead, we’ll have to act like adults, fight back and put these internet trolls on check.

Twitter is leading the charge by pulling select tweets and whole accounts, but they do need our help.

Next time you see an ignorant tweet against four year old Blue Ivy, hit the report feature. If we band together for our youth, we can set a much better example for the next generation.

Or at least remove from the internet anybody who can’t properly capitalize their hate.

Koriander Bullard is an author, cartoonist and human rights advocate. Keep up with her on Facebook!

Hulk Hogan. Orlando Bloom. Leslie Jones. Three celebrities who have graced the silver screen at one point or another. What else do they have in common?

They’ve been hacked shortly after dealing with cyber harassment.

Private photos, private videos, private conversations with trusted friends and family, all plastered all over the internet with their assailants making a profit off of every click.

All three had their attackers proclaim the exact same messages over and over again.

You deserve it.

You had better kill yourself.Keep quiet or else.I hate you, so you must be Gay.I hate you, so you must be a whore.I’m exposing you.I’m exposing the truth.It’s not my fault you’re a slut.You asked for it.You offend my community.I bet you’re loving this attention.You’re a stupid (racial slur) get out of my country!Leave the community!

All three have had the authorities tell them the same things.

It’s not against the law to say those things.

It’s not against our community standards.What did you do to deserve this?This is probably your fault.What do you mean he used software to hack you?Were you gaming online? You asked for it.Oh you saw a pop-up I bet. You did this to yourself.What was your password? You probably didn’t make it hard enough.Don’t you even know what parental and privacy locks are?Did you block him? Wasn’t that enough?You did block him? Wow, unfriendly I see. No wonder he hit you.Were you seen wearing something sexy? You may have been asking for it.

How dare you show your real life face or name in public?You asked for it by becoming famous.

For the uneducated, hacking and cyber attacks are not and have never been “kids being kids”.

This is a form of terrorism.

The average cyber attacker or hacker is not a prepubescent tween as we have been assured erroneously by the public school system, although it is true that tweens and teens do put up with a good amount of this assault.

Wake up call! The average hacker or cyber stalker is between the ages of 19 and 35 while some of the more pig-headed comments typically come from the 36+ year old crowd.

Anonymous? Lulz? WikiLeaks? Lizard Squad? How many times a year do we hear about hackers destroying PSN and theXBOX Live community? How many politicians and celebrities have we heard about being hacked? How many hate pages are out there?Now ask yourself this. Did you really, honestly believe this was all just children under the age of 16?

Of course not. These were adults.

True, in the case of Lizard Squad, one arrested member wound up being 17 years old at the time of his incarceration, but let’s be clear. All of the other attacks have been done by adults, many pushing or well beyond the age of thirty. Too old to be cyber bullies. Too old to be digging into your account.

The excuses they give are always the same.

We’re here to expose _______ for the corruption he/she/they hide behind.We’re the real heroes, we’re just helping by exploiting the security flaws of ________.com!We’re just telling you the real truth that the media won’t.

We’re all adults here. Let’s be realistic. This is not and never has been about “exposing corruption” or being the internet equivalent of Batman.

This is and has always been about control.

Just like a burglar or a rapist, these criminals, complete and total strangers by the way, select a victim they imagine they are stronger than, either physically or mentally. They target that victim with an assortment of threats and harsh language.

We as a society tell the victim to ignore it, with the thought that if you stick your fingers in your ears, it’ll magically disappear.

Well if this didn’t work on the playground, it doesn’t work here either.

When an attacker realizes he’s being ignored, he will go out of his way to force you to pay attention to him. He’ll harass your friends and family, spread lies about you to get rid of your fans and followers. When this proves to be unsatisfying, he resorts to the attack.

If he can’t rape you or break into your physical property, he’ll grab his buddies and have them hack your website, email, Twitter, or whatever else he can get into before you’re awake.

Now you’re forced to see him. He’s in your subconscious. You have no choice but to deal with him.

You have no choice but to fight back.

You reach out to the FBI via www.ic3.gov as they have a section just for internet crime. You phone the police. You have to submit all kinds of personal information just to get them to pay attention to you and to not see you as your own perpetrator.

If you’re Hulk Hogan, you get a lawyer and take the criminals to court.

A judge agrees that hacking is as mentally destroying as rape, and sides with you. While in the eyes of the law, you have finally gotten justice, and you will either see your attacker go to prison or pay for the damages, the media now mollycoddles the attacker.

How dare you stand up for yourself? Shame on you!The attacker was just an innocent victim, trying to tell the truth via journalism.The attacker was misunderstood.The attacker deserves another chance at life.Let’s wear rubber bracelets, light a candle and pray for the attacker.You deserve what he did to you, you should be grateful!You’re a dirty slut who needs to die anyway, be grateful he even paid you this much mind.Poor attacker! He was a quiet, shy boy in school.The attacker’s probably on the Autism spectrum, he has more rights than you.Let’s do a kickstarter to get this saintly attacker out of jail and into college!

“Poor Gawker, he put all those innocent people out of work.” This last phrase rings in Hulk Hogan’s ears every time he goes to check his snail mail outside.

And just like a rape victim, you’re left with years of victim shaming, while your attacker is falsely praised as a hero. You’re afraid to even type “Happy Birthday” to your best friend ever again, while this guy gets off knowing he had control over your life for a few short hours.

We’re barely trying to do anything to stop rape culture, but we’re doing less than nothing to stop hacker culture.

In fact, we’re stupid enough to cheer it on.

“Look at Orlando Bloom! How dare he be naked in his private moments, let’s put funny faces on his crotch!” smears the Huffington Post, while conservatives slut-shame Leslie Jones, calling her a nappy headed n-word simply because she was hired to be in Ghostbusters 3 and newspaper after newspaper have begged for their weekly $3 tip from readers for how many times they can Photoshop Hulk Hogan and call him a “fallen hero” over a private sex tape Gawker hacked and sold of him. And the more we support the victim shaming, the more it becomes part of the daily habit of Americans.

As Americans, we need to stop accepting this internet terrorism as “normal” behavior.

We are better than this.

We need to call our newspapers, magazines and the like, and voice our anger. Stop victim shaming or my community will stop buying your tabloid rags. And make good on that threat! If it doesn’t stop, quit reading it. Unlike the page on Facebook and walk away. Tell your friends to do the same.

As far as these cyber attackers go, stop using cute names for them. These aren’t “bullies” and it’s not “bullying” it’s harassment and hacking. And you don’t have to put up with it.

Treat these cases on the same level as if it was in your face. If blocking and reporting is getting you nowhere, name your assailant. Screencap the emails and comments, then put them publicly on your accounts. Let your friends and family know somebody is threatening you, this way if you do get hacked, your family will know immediately you’re not at fault for anything posted.

These guys claim to be fans of exposure, right? So expose them back. Let people see the unedited harassment you put up with and where it came from. Get your friends to report their accounts until this stops being an issue.

Did the cops give you the cold shoulder the first time? Keep trying. Be blunt without swearing. Ask the cop gently “If I was your child, would you allow this to happen?” The minute I asked a cop what he would do if this was his daughter being attacked instead of me, I got a hacker arrested. Cops sometimes need perspective. Instead of fighting with them, offer some help. Use show and tell. Show them your sites and tell them about how little the security measures help. You’d be surprised how quickly a bad situation can turn around without raising your voice. Do the same for an FBI agent and don’t be afraid to ask for their superior or a detective. These are your tools you paid for with your tax money.

Stand up for yourself. It’s perfectly fine to say “no, you do not talk to me this way” out loud.

Treat your harassers like the toddlers they behave like. Instead of arguing and talking back like you would to an adult, talk to them like they’re three years old. “That’s very cute that you’re pretending I’m a whore, but Facebook is for ages 13 and up. Until you can behave as if you’re at least this old, you’ll have to make believe that I’m wrong somewhere else. Thank you for sharing your make believe with me.” Trust me, it’s much harder for these guys to get their buddies to gang up on you after they’ve been publicly exposed as behaving like preschool children.

If all else fails, do what Hulk Hogan did.

Get a lawyer.

Hacker culture is real, but we don’t have to accept it.

Koriander Bullard is an author, cartoonist and human rights advocate. Keep up with her on Facebook!

What is it about those born after 1990 and their inability to take responsibility for their actions?

So there is an "author" on Amazon who thinks it's funny to troll other authors. For the sake of this article, let's call her “Pussycat92” for now. I'm using the term "author" loosely, seeing as how most of her "books" are a blatant rip-off of a dozen or so novels from Harlequin Romance.

Pussycat92 has two accounts, one for her Amazon selling, and another with a similar name for praising her author BFFs and trashing the people she makes up a beef with.

... Amazon trolling. Wow. That's about as sad as last year's LinkedIn trolling debacle. That's about one step away from Google+ or MySpace trolling. Does anybody use these sites for commenting anymore? This must be a sign that the craze of internet trolling is finally going down, albeit in a sad, very pathetic way. If Facebook is starting to moderate their comments better, and Twitter is no-tolerance, I guess that leaves shopper's trolling?

Currently, she is cyber-stalking a friend of mine. For this article, we'll call my friend “Peach” for the sake of protecting her name. She started by Facebook trolling, then she got a few of her friends to join in, then she sent Peach threats via more than one social media account, and finally resorted to Amazon trolling.

Pussycat92 by the way is 24 years old. Too old to be acting this badly, don't you think so?

We have an entire generation of mouth breathers who can't handle anything darker than their own shadow, breeding.

I wouldn't know Pussycat92 bred except for the fact that she posted photos of her youngest child, bragged about how skinny and runway thin he is for being less than a year old (that's called malnourishment, boys and girls) and then threw a monumental hissy fit when one of the photos was shared for a post about adorable babies.

I repeat. Someone shared the photo and said her baby was adorable.

She threw a hissy fit.

Was she not aware the photo was set to “public” on Facebook?

Like Pussycat92, these people want to be destructive, they want to be cyber bullies, they want to dictate to you how you're supposed to post or act online, they want to order you about and post unsavory things against you and even develop a gang to slander you online, but when someone either out-bullies them or just tells them to knock it off, suddenly they're the "poor defenseless" victims in need of a "safe place" and a lollipop.

Another thing they demand, other than of course, being heralded as a heroic celebrity despite doing precious nothing in their pre-30's lives, is that if you have a problem, that you only address it on their terms, via a quickly blockable and deletable email, so that they can claim publicly that you “never” tried to work anything out with them “civilly” and that now they “have to” do what they pretend is the “right” thing by “exposing” you're wicked evil via poor photoshops, terrible memes and a laundry list of reasons why you should hang yourself, to appease the “true victims” who were harmed greatly by your telling them to stop being a troll and actually read a TOS once in a while.

What happens when these soft, keyboard warriors have to face parenthood?

When little Kylo or Rey start fussing in the middle of the night that there's a monster under their beds, what will these self-entitled Millennial Maggots do? Will they:

a) Troll the children and make fun of this event on Facebookb) Hide under the bedsheets, convinced the monster is coming for them firstc) Beg for help from their internet gang while trying to Google a solution?

Heaven forbid the children take on actual problems found in childhood, such as barfing, pooping, getting sick out of season or any of the other non-cute things children go through. What then? Will their Millennial parents need a safe space to cry in? Or will they be forced to grow up and realize that their petty actions fall on deaf ears the very moment reality hits them in the form of a traumatized child?

If this cyber nonsense is unacceptable in your teen years, you have to imagine how much worse it looks when you are a parent old enough to own a home.

If Facebook is the literal worst, most influential “event” in their lives, how will they handle real life? If sharing a baby picture causes World War Three to erupt, please let this tender little blossom never have something major happen, such as someone stepping on her $20 Route 66's. The world might end.

Koriander Bullard is an author, cartoonist and human rights advocate. Keep up with her on Facebook!

While many people have been jumping to play Pokemon Go, I wasn't sure if people understood what it really means to be caught playing the game, so I decided to do a little ground work for this piece.

Saturday afternoon, I decided to go on location to write this article. Dressed in a Pikachu shirt, I jumped into a car with a few new friends and my husband to go play Pokemon Go, the hot new app from Ninatic Inc. and Nintendo that has people catching the first 150 Pocket Monsters in their backyards.

From my house to City Hall is roughly 15 minutes, long enough for me to not only teach my husband how to play, but also to pick up a few normal types before hitting our first PokeStop. He didn't have the chance to play Pokemon growing up, so this was a new experience for him. Stopping at the Hall, we waited around for a few minutes while the servers came back up as John found and caught a Pokemon he instantly liked, an Ekans. They say there's at least one Pokemon for every type of person, but he found a few more he wanted to train up. By the time the servers stopped crashing, there was a small group of people surrounding the Hall, joining John in looking for an elusive Pikachu.

Hitting the road again, we drove 20 minutes through London and then into Corbin. For those who do not know, Corbin, Kentucky is only known for two things. One being it's sole museum, the KFC museum and restaurant, which is also the only museum withing driving distance in South-Eastern Kentucky, and for the number of churches dotting Corbin. Main Street alone boasts at least three religious establishments per city block.

How would I know this? Simple. Every church and statue is either a PokeStop or a Gym.

The church PokeStops are some of the most charitable for Pokemon players. Each one gives away more eggs, potions, PokeBalls and revives than any other, with the eggs being most valuable. For younger or less lucky players, getting an egg from a statue from one of the religious statues guarantees that if you walk just a few kilometers, you will be able to hatch a random Pokemon, some with pretty decent stats if you're extremely lucky.

Corbin is dotted with all kinds of PokeStops, but the church related ones give away the most. I couldn't help but notice that as we were all walking, there were parents gathering to play with their children, and they used the PokeStops as a way to teach their children about who the statues were in honor of and when they were created. And for once, the children and teenagers not only listened, they asked thoughtful questions, showing that despite the game, they were paying attention.

This puts to bed the offensive rumors about the game taking children away from religion. While the game has done more to foster community and friendship than religion, it's also made it easier for parents to indoctrinate their children into the old faith.

Heading over to Game King, I saw that while the employees were also Pokemon Go players, they respected their company enough not to play during work hours. They did however offer tips and ideas on where to find certain Pokemon. This was the same in several other stores, where I discovered that people who are gainfully employed can also enjoy the game on breaks, putting to bed another offensive rumor, that Pokemon Go players are unemployed losers who are anti-social. Nothing was farther from the truth.

As the sun set, Corbin became unusually packed with families, and this is where I saw the most wonderful thing.

I saw teenagers, some with Gothic makeup and tattoos, willingly opening up to their parents and sharing the game with them. I saw grandparents teaching their grandchildren how to throw a curve-ball at something better than a Rattata. I saw people of all ages playing though the “Capture the Flag” method of taking over gyms and people everywhere were laughing, telling jokes, and exploring Corbin together. I also saw that because there were more people coming around to play, there were folks outside cleaning up statues and long forgotten artifacts, just to make sure that every spec of culture was not forgotten, and that everyone had a chance to enjoy Corbin's landmarks.

And putting to bed another offensive rumor, I never once saw anybody disobey a traffic law. Everyone was mindful of traffic, nobody swerved or darted out in front of moving vehicles. This goes against another popular meme about people walking into cars. Not one person dared. In fact, most adults encouraged the use of the buddy system in holding hands across the intersections.

Heading to a park in Barbourville, I found that parents were using the app to teach their children about fishing. The parents would drop a lure in the game and set up incense on their children's phones for Goldeen and Slowpoke, while setting up fishing lines in real life and teaching the children about patience. With plenty of catfish biting and lots of Oddish and Staryu popping up, it seems everyone caught something this way. They also used the game to teach the kids about basic science, such as how fire types are weak against water and how fire and water makes steam, putting to bed the “Pokemon Go players are stupid” rumor with little effort.

By the time our trip started coming to a close, it was well after two in the morning. Stopping by City Hall again in London, I found many a car with parents setting up blankets in the passenger areas for tuckered out trainers, whilst one or the other parent would walk past the flowers for one last revive.

In more than ten hours of playtime, I never once saw anybody brandish a weapon, threaten a stranger, hit another person or start an argument. The closest thing to a real life fight I witnessed was just playful teasing from one Team Valor member to a Team Mystic, but again, it was all in good fun. No name-calling or language above TVY. Nobody argued about guns, politics or religion, and everyone had a fun time collecting Pokemon and chatting with strangers in a safe manner.

I did see some people use this to be helpful. Many spoke of step-counting apps that pay certain charities for every mile you walk with your phone, and how they could run the charity app in the background while hatching Pokemon eggs. Others offered to pick up trash while on these walks, and I don't think Corbin has ever looked nicer.

This is the reality of Pokemon Go. The simple game encourages community, and seemingly is only despised by those whose Facebook walls paint a bleak picture of individuals who are unhappy with their own lives. The free app has done more to position humanity towards world peace than any other institution before it, and serves as a reminder that humanity isn't all bad after all. It brings families together, fosters friendship and teaches kids about good sportsmanship and patience. It's good for marriage as well, as now I have something fun to share with my husband.

I think another reason why this game works so well is that it's positive. Unlike other popular games, Pokemon Go does not take place in a pre or post-apocalyptic world. None of the characters have trust issues, and it's encouraged that you treat people and Pokemon with respect, and there is no gender-bias against any of the players. Male and female characters are treated as equals and are not seen as sexual objects.

Pokemon Go gives those of us who grew up with the game plenty of nostalgia, and a safe and easy entry into the franchise for newer players. It's available for free on Google Play and is worth the time put in.

Koriander Bullard is an author, cartoonist and human rights advocate. Keep up with her on Facebook!

The 2010's started off roughly. Everyone needed a "safe space" after starting their Twitter wars, we all became self-entitled and then got angry when nobody showed up to the pity party.

But we are evolving as a society. So it's time we give up the things that aren't serving us anymore. We need to make a clean sweep of it now before the new year rolls in. And since it's only May, we can still say it's "Spring Cleaning" time. So break out the thimbles, Peter Pan. It's time to kiss off some bad habits.

1. The "She won't date me because I'm a nice guy" lie.Well this was a cute trend about five years ago, but it's old, son, and nobody is buying it. In fact, let me be bold about this one.

If you have to remind people over and over that you are a "nice" guy, chances are that you are NOT.

My husband is a real "nice" guy. He holds the door open, minds his manners and tries to do the right thing. It's actually what attracted me to him, and I am a born and raised female.

Know one thing he didn't do?

He never whined and complained that women didn't want him because he was a "nice" guy.

Anytime he got rejected, guess what? He moved on and found another female. No memes, no photoshops, no complaining, and no slut-shaming either.

That's right, he didn’t once accuse any woman who broke his heart of being a "whore" or a "chick who only likes assholes". He took it on the chin, and moved on without so much as a Facebook rant, where the woman's name is only typed as "certain people".

No excuses guys. And let me point out another thing.

Just because she's single does NOT mean she is obligated to go out with you because you asked.

Remember the one girl in school you thought was gross? She could have been the fat chick or the "crazy" chick, but you know what I mean. The one girl in school nobody wanted to be near.

If she asked you out, and you said "no" is it because you're only into bitches?

No, it's because she's not really your type.

Well if it's okay for you to say "no" to any woman you want, why are you suddenly playing the victim card when another woman denies you?

Don't pretend this is "different" because it's not. It's the same and you know it. Just as you're not obligated to date the fugly chick because she asked, that girl on Twitter also does not have to go out with you, just because you're pretending to be a "nice" guy;.

2. The ________________ issue with the LBGTQ community.I seriously don't even care anymore. I don’t care if you're butthurt because a Transgender is using the bathroom or because Sally and Susie tied the knot, I can assure you that your problem with the LBGTQ community is imaginary. Get over it. Permanently.I know your problem is fake, because of the temper tantrums you're throwing on Facebook.

You are pretending this is about protecting your "morals" you read about in the Bible, which is a hateful, man-edited tome that preaches it's "okay" to marry a girl between the ages of 9 and 12, if she's had her first menses. (That's a pretty word meaning "period" by the way.)Let me be clear. If your book still advocates child marriage, it ain't a book of morals!You don't need the book to love Jesus either. You remember him. That Middle-Eastern Jew who said we should love thy neighbor regardless of differences.NEWSFLASH!! Raping someone of their rights is not "love" and it certainly is immoral no matter what you want to pretend.

Put down the book, dial down the tantrum, and move on.

3. Your problem with women.I find it hysterical that the only people who complain about feminism are men, and the few, brainwashed, backwoods women who actually think this is 1957.

These immature little boys act like they have to be pampered everytime a woman speaks up. Here's an example:

Woman: I'm sick of being mansplained. Why are guys always talking over me, can't they wait their turn to speak?Man-Child: What about GUYS?? We're ALWAYS being picked on! It's not fair!! This isn’t about YOU, guys go through this to! This is about ME!!When you're not trying to start the pity parade over the problems you only seem to imagine happening when a woman has it happen to her, you're trying to rape her of her right to her own body.

I once saw a man rant on Facebook in a long winded, scientifically inaccurate post, because a 13 year old little girl who was raped, wanted to have an abortion. This man, a complete stranger by the way, called her every dirty name in the book, tried to say she brought the rape on herself, and then demand that this girl, once again, a stranger, keep and raise the baby, because rape babies are a gift from his misunderstanding of God.By the way. Without health insurance, that "rape gift" costs:$10,000 to be born.$120 per visit at the OBGYN before birth24/7 care for 18-21 years$50,000 college tuitionAnd thousands in school, clothing, furniture, toys and food for those 18-21 years it's an "icky welfare whore" and no longer a "precious" life.

Grow up. It's HER body. HER money and HER life. Not yours. Let her choose what happens and stay back.

4. Deadbeat Facebook parentsGuys and gals, we're sick of you both. You whine and cry on Facebook about how "horrible" it is you have to "waste" so much money on the kid you "ain't never see" and you demand the pity party, but then the next 45 pictures are of you, at the club, getting crunk, making replacement babies you will also "never see" while you're slut-shaming your ex and demanding to know where every penny went.

Meanwhile, your kid is at home, struggling to survive off of the pittance the court made you pay, and wondering why their absent parent doesn't love them. They see you on Facebook. They know YOU chose not to spend time with them, NOT the other way around, and they know you drank away their college fund.

We're not going to be your enabler anymore. Next time you feel like crying about your ex, don't be shocked when you're deleted from my Facebook.

5. HipstersLook kids, it's over.

We weren't too thrilled with your parents ~ the Yuppies ~ back in the 1980's, when they suddenly thought it was cool to raid their parents' closets, and we are less thrilled with your lot.

That brown, knit beanie with the avocado and baby puke scarf? Yeah. It's not "ironic". It's disgusting, much like that bird's nest you call a beard. TAKE IT OFF!! Your parents ditched the "Homeless Doobie Brother" look for a reason back in the 1970's. The neutral "back 2 nature" look is an eyesore. Take off those crocs, ditch the khakis and go put on a pair of jeans, like a normal college grad.Also, your language? It's got to go.

If you can't learn the definition for "ironic" I'd rather you not use it at all. Same goes for the term "Per se" and any and all instances where I've caught you trying to psycho-analyze comic book characters. Sometimes, things are very literal. Sometimes it's okay for a subject to be in black and white, did you know that? Your gross misuse of the English language is as annoying as those Allen Sherman glasses. Please return both your dingy Instagram filters and your self-entitled attitude to Camp Granada.

And no, you may not return to your "safe space" either. 2016 is almost half over. We need to make some changes while we still have daylight.

Koriander Bullard is an author, cartoonist and human rights advocate. Keep up with her on Facebook!